


Almost

by jennfics



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 06:31:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13653390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennfics/pseuds/jennfics
Summary: What almost happened...





	Almost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Joudie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joudie/gifts).



> For Joudie/mindykahling - Happy Valentine's Day

Ginny Baker almost pitched a no-hitter during her rookie season in the Majors. 

 

Ginny Baker almost ended her career that same game. 

 

Ginny Baker almost assured her spot in the Padres team roster. 

 

Ginny Baker almost … almost …  _ almost _ . 

 

It’s that word she hears playing over in her mind as she listens to the doctors read her scans. The same word she can’t seem to shake when she meets with Oscar and the front office suits. The same word every person she talks to uses to describe what’s happened, as they simultaneously forget it’s her this is happening to. 

 

The same word she hears lying in a hospital bed. Recovery will be slow, but surgery was a success. She’ll almost be ready for Spring training, and is expected to report regardless. She almost lost baseball.    
  
She almost agrees to Christmas dinner at the Sanders’ home, but books a one-way ticket to Bora Bora instead. Evelyn tells her it’s crazy to travel so far alone, but Ginny doesn’t hear it. She’s tired of listening to what everyone else wants for her, which may be unfair to Evelyn but she’s not in the headspace to care. 

 

What Ginny wants is sun and sand, ocean stretching so far she can’t tell where the water ends and the sky begins. She wants to be selfish, just this once. She wants quiet. She wants solitude. She wants a place to hide. When her toes dip in the water, she thinks she almost has just that. 

 

Until Mike Lawson shows up two days later. 

 

She tells him to leave, but of course he doesn’t. Says he wasn’t invited, but he tells her that’s never stopped him before. She gives him the silent treatment for two days, but he doesn’t seem to mind just makes himself at home in her villa. 

 

Mike orders her favorite room service each night and hangs up the wet bathing suits she leaves on the floor. There’s a bottle of water next to her bed each morning, and the curtains tied back to allow the rising sun to be her alarm clock. 

 

Ginny’s forgotten what it feels like to be taken care of and though she isn’t sure why, Mike seems to have taken it upon himself to help her remember. Orbiting around each other for almost a week, she finally cracks. 

 

She asks him about Rachel, and he tells her it almost worked out. When he asks about Noah, she said it was almost something. 

 

Neither mentions their almost kiss. 

 

They sit together in the evenings, chairs side by side on the deck as the night creeps over the horizon. Almost two weeks in paradise when reality comes knocking, as both their phones vibrate with email alerts. Room assignments and schedules for Spring training. 

 

“We can only stay another day, maybe two.” 

 

“I know.”

 

“I don’t feel ready either if that makes you feel any better.”   
  
“Maybe a little.” 

 

He snorts softly, smiling with the lift of one corner of his mouth. 

 

“What will happen now?”   
  
“We’ll go home. You’ll go back to PT. I’ll hit the gym, see if I can take a few pounds off this beer gut. And then we’ll head to Arizona.” His tone light, trying too hard for nonchalant.

 

“I don’t want to go.”   
  
Mike dips his head minutely, avoiding her gaze and taking a long swig from the beer he’s holding. 

 

“What? No pep talk? You’re just going to shake your head and let that hang there?” Gesturing between the two of them with a swift flick of her left hand. “That I don’t want to go to Arizona.” 

 

“Yep.”   
  
“Yep? What do you mean, yep?”   
  
“I mean, yep, I’m just going to let you sit with that.” Turning his head toward her, his focus is pulled to the arm she cradles across her chest. He’s not even sure she knows she’s doing it, subconsciously protecting her injured shoulder. “There’s nothing I can say, rook, that’s going to make it any easier for you to get on that plane home or to pack your bag for Peoria.”

 

Her eyes narrow slightly, brow furrowing as he knows she expected more. 

 

“Look, Baker. I could sit her and coddle you and tell you that it’ll be fine. Your shoulder will heal. You’ll pitch again. But I think we both know, you don’t want to hear those things. If you did, we wouldn’t be holed up here avoiding reality.” 

 

“So what do I want to hear?” she bites back, all challenge and spite in her tone. 

 

Mike assesses her carefully before reaching out to run his fingers along her forearm extended in the space between their chairs. He slides his hand into hers like it’s nothing, as if this was something he did normally. As though they were more than ballplayers, more than batterymates. Maybe even, more than friends. 

 

“I don’t know what you want to hear, Ginny.” The softness in his voice pulls her gaze from their joined hands. Taking a deep breath in through her mouth, she’s suddenly too aware of her own heartbeat. 

 

“If I knew what to say, I probably would’ve already. But I don’t. I don’t know how to make this any better for you.” His thumbs rubs across her hand absentmindedly, back and forth. 

 

“Why are you here, Mike?” How she hasn’t asked that question over the past few weeks, she isn’t sure now. 

 

Scrubbing the hand that isn’t holding hers across his face and then tugging his beard slightly, Mike sighs. There’s no easy answer to her question, despite how many times he’s played this conversation over in his mind. The trip out here gave him more than enough time to think, but the right words just never seemed to come. 

 

He wants to tell her that she’ll recover. Remind her how optimistic the docs were after her surgery. Pass along the concern from her teammates, repeat to her as often as she needs to hear that she’s still a Padre. Baseball isn’t ready to let go of Ginny Baker. And neither is Mike Lawson.

 

“You’re here. Where else am I supposed to be?”   
  


She’s torn between a sob and a laugh. He should be back home, trying to make it work with his wife - what he’d been planning to do before she was injured. He should be trying to repair the rift with Blip; maybe practicing his golf swing or reclining by his pool, making the most of off-season leisure. Where he isn’t supposed to be is here, running with her. 

 

“Not here,” she says, no trace of fight left in her voice. 

 

Sighing heavily, he shakes his head heavenward. Ginny feels his fingers tighten around hers, while her traitorous heart forces her to shift closer to him. 

 

“Just because you think you’re strong enough, doesn’t mean you’re able. You aren’t alone, Ginny. You don’t have to be.” She starts to interrupt, but he pins her with a look. “I already know your speech, too, so save it. I’m here because despite what you think, Baker, no person is an island. It’s ok to need other people. And even more than that, it’s ok to trust people. Not everyone is going to hurt you or leave you. Not everyone wants something from you.”    
  


“Don’t they? Don’t you?” She tries to pull her hand from his grasp, but he won’t let her. 

 

“No, Ginny. I don’t want anything from you. I want things for you.  Maybe it’s been everything for so long that you forgot why, but I want you to play again because the game means something to you. I want you to love baseball again.” 

 

Watching as she bites her lip, breaking their eye contact and turning her gaze toward the expanse of blue-green ocean in front of them, he stares at her profile for several moments, memorizing as best he can the contours of her face. 

 

“I’m not leaving either. Not without you, anyway.” She doesn’t nod or say anything, but the fingers in the hand he’s still holding grip his again tightly. 

 

Mike sips his beer as he waits for her. 

 

“What if I can’t?” she whispers. “All I’ve been thinking about is what almost happened. I can’t get away from it.” 

 

“You can. It’s if you want to.” A stray tear slips down her cheek before she can wipe it away. “I’ll still be here, no matter what you decide.” 

 

Nodding, she takes a deep breathe in, then out slowly. She wants to believe him, hopes she can. 

 

“You were wrong, you know?”    
  
“I’m never wrong, rookie, but go ahead.” Rolling her eyes heavily, she can’t help a smile from forming. 

 

“When you said there wasn’t anything you could say that would make it easier to go home.” He’s smirking now, and Ginny is positive she’s going to regret whatever comes next.

 

“You telling me I’ve still got it, rook?” 

 

“If by ‘it’ you mean pep talks, then yes. You’ve still got it, Captain.” His smile falters just slightly. 

 

“I meant it all Gin, you know that right?” She does know. He wouldn’t be sitting here if he didn’t. 

 

“Yeah, Mike. I know.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the mods for putting this together! So excited to read all the new fic and gush over the art, gifsets, and other creations coming our way! Forever bitter as we all know, Pitch Deserved Better. <3


End file.
